pid as they think. Shut me up here, would they? Well, we'll see!"

He went on munching a little longer, then felt for the bottle, took out
the tight cork, had a good long draught of the milk it contained,
recorked and put it away in the basket with the bread, butter, and ham
he had not consumed, shut down the lid, and laughed.

There was nothing very cheerful about his prison to make him laugh, but
the reaction was so great--he felt so different after his hearty meal--
that he was ready to look any difficulty in the face, and full of wonder
at his despondency of a short time before.

There's a good deal of magic in food to one who is fasting, and is
blessed with health and a good appetite.

"Now then," he said, rising with the basket in his hand, "the first
thing is to find a place to stow you;" and he had no difficulty in
finding ledge after ledge that would have held the basket, but he wanted
one that would be easily found in the darkness.

At last he felt his way to a great mass of rock, upon which, about level
with his head, was a projection upon which the basket stood well enough,
and trusting to being able to find it again by means of the great block,
he turned his attention to the lanthorn.

"If I only had that," he said to himself.

He stood thinking in the darkness, wondering which way he had better
try.

"Any way," he said at last, "for I will have it; and then if I don't
find my way out of this hole, I'm as stupid as that fellow thinks."

Stretching out his hands to save himself from a blow against any
obstacle, he stalked off in as straight a direction as he could go,
feeling his way with his feet, and always making sure of firm foothold
before he moved the one that was safe, for his one great dread in the
vast cavern was lest he should suddenly find himself on the brink of
some yawning shaft.

He knew little about the district, his ideas of the place being
principally confined to what he had seen of the coast-line from the sea,
but rugged piles of stone had been pointed out to him here and there as
being the refuse of the stone that had been ages before dug and
regularly mined by shafts and galleries out of the bowels of the earth;
and a little thinking convinced him that he must be shut up in one of
those old quarries which had been seized upon by the smugglers as a
place to hide their stores.

It was a shrewd guess, and he could not help thinking afterwards that it
was no wonder that so lit